Central to the University of Waterloo’s mission is the creation and dissemination of knowledge. As new scholars, graduate students are expected to disclose and publicly defend their research results to ensure review from their peers and acceptance and inclusion of their findings in open scholarly discourse.
At times, graduate students may wish to protect their research results, particularly when they contain material of commercial or marketable value, or when restricted by a publication agreement. Similarly, students may require accessibility accommodations or engage in sensitive research areas which may present personal risks. These unique circumstances may result in a thesis and/or thesis defence being Held Without Public Disclosure.
The following theses have been submitted to the Faculty of Science Graduate Office and are available, unless otherwise noted, for review by any member of the University during the display period only. The display period is the time between the posting of the thesis and the examination date.
May PhD Defences
Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: José de Jesús PADUA ARGÜELLES
Title: Studying quantum gravity 𝘷𝘪𝘢 simplicial Lorentzian path integrals
Supervisor: Bianca Dittrich
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 308
Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Zheng ZHOU
Title: Studying Conformal Field Theories in Three Dimensions with the Fuzzy Sphere
Supervisor: Roger Melko and Yin-Chen He
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Kartar SINGH
Title: Cholesterol and Amyloid β Modulation of Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Signaling in Neural Cell Models
Supervisor: Mike Beazely and Zoya Leonenko
Department: School of Pharmacy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 12:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Jinmin YI
Title: Disorder Effects in Topological Phases of Matter
Supervisor: Anton Burkov
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Sayan GANGOPADHYAY
Title: Towards Indistinguishable Photon Generation from Nanowire Quantum Dots
Supervisor: Michael Reimer
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 11:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Adrian LOPEZ
Title: Categorical 't Hooft Expansion and Twisted Holography
Supervisor: Robert Mann and Davide Gaiotto
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 352
Friday, May 29, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Matthew DUSCHENES
Title: Effects of Noise on Optimization, Statistics, and Simulation of Quantum Systems
Supervisor: Roger Melko and Juan Carrasquilla
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: QNC 2101
June PhD Defences
Monday, June 1, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Leonardo ALMEIDA LESSA
Title: Order in the Open: Symmetries and Entanglement of Many-Body Mixed States
Supervisor: Anton Burkov and Chong Wang
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Tuesday, June 2, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Amirreza NEGARI
Title: Phases of matter in quantum information and error correction
Supervisor: Roger Melko and Timothy Hsieh
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Dejana MITROVIC
Title: Effects of Temperature and Niclosamide on the Toxicity of the Lampricide TFM (3-trifluoromethyl-4-nitrophenol) to Sea Lamprey (𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘺𝘻𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘴) and Rainbow Trout (𝘖𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘩𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘮𝘺𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴)
Supervisor: Mark Servos and Michael Wilkie
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Megan Schuyler MOSS
Title: Scaling and generalization in neural quantum states
Supervisor: Roger Melko
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 308
Friday, June 19, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Harish MURALI
Title: Huge Operators in Holography: BPS Sectors, Matrix Models, and Black Holes
Supervisor: Jaume Gomis and Pedro Vieira
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Friday, June 19, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Úna HOGAN
Title: A STUDY OF THE CLASSIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF MICROPLASTICS THROUGH RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY AND MACHINE LEARNING
Supervisor: Rodney Smith
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: C2 361
Friday, June 19, 2026 at 1:30:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Nicholas ZUTT
Title: Qudit Quantum Computation on Trapped Barium-137 Ions
Supervisor: Crystal Senko
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 352 with Remote EE
Wednesday, June 24, 2026 at 2:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Cameron LAWLOR-FORSYTH
Title: Identifying and Distinguishing Quenching Galaxies with Spatially Resolved Star Formation
Supervisor: Michael Balogh
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: EIT 2053
Thursday, June 25, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Amir RESHADI
Title: Multi-Scale Modeling of Microplastic Fate and Transport in Urban Runoff: From Catchment-Scale Yield and Retention to a Global Predictive Framework
Supervisor: Fereidoun Reza Nezhad and Philippe Van Cappellen
Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Location/Method: EIT 2053
April PhD Defences
Wednesday, April 1, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Sam HIRNIAK
Title: Economic evaluations of hemophilia A interventions in Canada
Supervisor: Andrea Edginton and William WL Wong
Department: School of Pharmacy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, April 2, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Devashish TUPKARY
Title: Rigorous Security Proofs for Practical Quantum Key Distribution
Supervisor: Norbert Lütkenhaus
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: QNC 2101
Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Karyn ROBICHAUD
Title: Investigating mitochondrial microRNAs in response to metabolic disruption
Supervisor: Paul Craig
Department: Biology
Location/Method: MC 2017
Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Pei LI
Title: Development of Nanozyme and Nanozyme-Enhanced Electrode for Electrochemical Lactate Sensing
Supervisor: Shirley Tang
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Paula JOFILY DE LIMA RANGEL
Title: Computational Structural Biology in Modern Integrative Discovery Pipelines
Supervisor: Subha Kalyaanamoorthy
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: C2 361
Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Christian THERRIEN
Title: The effect of exotic species on native species reintroductions: Ontario’s lake trout reintroductions
Supervisor: Heidi Swanson
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Alexander UMBACH
Title: Ecology of nitrifiers within engineered freshwater systems
Supervisor: Josh Neufeld
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Mira MAXIMOS
Title: Sex- and-Gender-Based Analyses of Penicillin Allergy Labels, Outcomes, and Delabeling Interventions
Supervisor: John-Michael Gamble
Department: School of Pharmacy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 3:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Alexandra KUNERT
Title: Late Paleoproterozoic ocean redox history from sedimentary thallium and uranium isotopes and implications for eukaryotic evolution
Supervisor: Brian Kendall
Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
May MSc Defences
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Victoria PEPE
Title: Where the Whip-poor-will will: Third and fourth order habitat selection of a migratory aerial insectivore
Supervisor: Liam McGuire
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Friday, May 8, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Prakriti CHHABRA
Title: Investigation of Skin Epithelial Innate Immune Barrier Functions using a Xenopus laevis Cell Line
Supervisor: Barb Katzenback
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Friday, May 22, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Hanna HICKEY
Title: The role of environmental gradients in the shift of wood traits from seedling to adult trees.
Supervisor: Julie Messier and Angela Prendin
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
June MSc Defences
Monday, June 8, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Hayden EPP
Title: The Effect of Turfgrass-to-Meadow Restoration on Carbon Storage and Sequestration in an Urban Environment
Supervisor: Rebecca Rooney
Department: Biology
Location/Method: MC 4060
Monday, June 8, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Katelyn GAO
Title: Benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages and freshwater food webs of beaver-impounded streams in the eastern Canadian Arctic
Supervisor: Michael Power
Department: Biology
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
April MSc Defences
Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Felix LAWSON
Title: Development and integration of technology into the monitoring of bats
Supervisor: Hugh Broders
Department: Biology
Location/Method: MC 4064
Thursday, April 9, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Danny MENG
Title: Putting Humpty-Dumpty back together: characterizing coherent recombination in Stern-Gerlach interferometers
Supervisor: James Martin
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 308
Monday, April 13, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Nathanael WILLMS
Title: Microbial Methane Oxidation and Community Dynamics in Southern Ontario Landfill Cover Soils
Supervisor: Laura Hug
Department: Biology
Location/Method: STC 2002
Tuesday, April 14, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Amy LACEY
Title: Evaluating Mercury Deposition over Space and Time in Critical Nesting Habitat for Endangered Whooping Crane (Wood Buffalo National Park)
Supervisor: Roland Hall and Brent Wolfe
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Khatoon MOTAKEFGHOMI
Title: Modelling TCE Contaminant Transport in Fractured Bedrock and Evaluating Bedrock Vapour Extraction using Comp Flow BioF at CTL-III, Santa Susana Field Laboratory
Supervisor: Andre Unger and Ken Walton
Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Location/Method: EIT 2053
Monday, April 27, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Beatriz NOGUEIRA E FIGUEIRA
Title: Ecology and ecophysiology of autumn migration in Silver-haired bats (𝘓𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘺𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘴)
Supervisor: Liam McGuire
Department: Biology
Location/Method: STC 2002
Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Norman LY
Title: Computational characterization of the dynamics and binding interactions in human VISTA
Supervisor: Subha Kalyaanamoorthy and Aravindhan Ganesan
Department: School of Pharmacy
Location/Method: PHR 7007
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 2:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Filip COTRA
Title: Computational Prediction and Mapping of Protein Folding Pathways
Supervisor: Brendan McConkey
Department: Biology
Location/Method: QNC 1506